


Teeth

by hurricane



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animal Attacks, Briefly anyway, But everything at Jurassic World is still the same, Claire being an A+ aunt, Dinosaur attacks too, He went to Brown, M/M, Marine Biologist Zach, Probably ooc, Raptor Squad, SeaWorld Trainer Zach, Zach is 23 and rides a killer whale so..., Zach is a genius, serious injury, slight PTSD, zachwen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 06:23:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5081065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricane/pseuds/hurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jurassic World isn't usually a place where people spend time to recover from a traumatic event, but Zach Mitchell's life has never been normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Water

**Author's Note:**

> This came about as a result of watching the documentary "Blackfish" again. I've not written in years and I'm worried about characterisation for Owen and Zach both, but it's AU anyway and there aren't enough works for this pairing so a few people on Tumblr encouraged me to post it regardless. So, let me know how it goes.

Zach is thirteen years old when he first goes snorkelling and he’s completely and utterly sold. 

Everything above the water is loud and bright and demands his attention, but below the surface it’s calm. He can hear the swish of his fins cutting through the water as he dives deeper to look at different rock formations, fish of all different shapes darting away as he nears them. He propels himself after them, determined to see as many as he can whilst trying to burn their image into his mind so he can look them up later. Suddenly his lungs burn and he remembers that if he wants to dive to the bottom, he has to come up for air. 

Zach decides he needs to try scuba diving. 

Their family vacation in Hawaii is over as fast as he can blink and soon enough he finds himself on the plane home, his little brother Gray chattering away in his ear and all the calm he’d built up from two weeks underwater very quickly evaporating. 

When both Zach and Gray requested that their next family holiday be another trip to Hawaii, their parents agreed but insisted that it wouldn’t be for another year or two at least. So he waited - every day wishing he was in the water again. In the summer, his parents requested more than once that Zach supervise his little brother at the local pool while they were at work, (which was fine, he could take his little brother out to have some fun every once in a while) but the public pool offered him no relief and didn’t even come close to the sense of calm he found when entering the ocean.

He’s fifteen by the time they finally return to Hawaii and this time his parents invite their Aunt Claire to come too. Zach loves Aunt Claire - she’s blunt and to the point, she knows when he doesn’t want to be bothered and will leave him alone, and she’s an expert at diffusing the tension when his parents begin to yell at him over the small stuff (like having his phone at the dinner table). Claire knows him well. Sometimes it seems like she knows him better than his immediate family and considering he sees her maybe once a year if that, that’s saying something. She also bought him a really expensive pair of headphones at Christmas. So there’s that. 

The thing about this trip is, Zach’s been building it up in his head for two years now - all the things he wants to do when he goes back - and it’s about all that’s kept him going through his first few years of high school. He wants to scuba dive. Coincidentally, he’s just turned fifteen and is old enough to get his open water certification. His parents completely and adamantly refuse and the trip goes to hell in a hand basket, just like that. He spends a lot of time with his headphones on; ignoring everything around him. He’s on a tiny island, surrounded by ocean and reefs and marine life and they’re walking around a shopping mall and he just can't fathom why. Gray pulls on his arm and points out things he finds interesting or humorous in almost every store they pass until Zach’s about ready to snap. That’s when Claire quietly but firmly tells her sister that she’s taking Zach and they’re going to the beach and they’ll meet up with everyone for dinner later. 

So he ends up at the same reef he’d snorkelled at two years ago, brand new fins and mask in hand, courtesy of his favourite aunt. She steadfastly assures him that she’s not going anywhere near the water, but she’s more than happy to lay on the beach with a book and wait for him. He likes that Claire understands he doesn’t need to be babied all the time and that they both enjoy spending time by themselves. She understands that he doesn’t need family activities 24/7 and that even though he loves his little brother, Gray gets on his nerves sometimes. She understands the need to just get _out_ and he’ll forever be thankful she came on this trip. 

He doesn’t take a snorkel with him this time and just focuses on holding his breath longer and longer, diving deeper and deeper beneath the surface. He’ll have to work on this, he thinks, next summer when they go to the pool. While he might not find any peace or a sense of calm there, at least he can do something worthwhile while he’s babysitting Gray. He swims for hours, floating around with green sea turtles, careful not to make them feel like he’s chasing them, but sticking close enough that he could reach out and touch them if he wanted. By the time he leaves the water Claire’s looking a little annoyed that she’s spent so much time out in the sun, but she knew he needed it and nothing more was said.

And if Zach received an underwater camera for Christmas the next year, well. That just cemented that he was her favourite. 

 

* * *

 

Zach and Gray were similar in a few ways, they were raised together after all, but for the most part they were polar opposites. Zach’s room could have been an underwater shrine and Gray’s was filled to the brim with dinosaurs. They were both incredibly intelligent, top of their class even and sometimes Zach thought that was the only redeeming quality that made his parents like him. He fought with them more and more as he grew older, only over small things, but it served to distance him from them further and it certainly made him dream of the day that he could get out. That day was coming and soon - he was seventeen years old, graduating high school at the end of the year and had already applied to several colleges - all of them on a coast or close to water and all with a fantastic marine biology program. 

He wanted the University of Hawaii - it felt like the right place to go to study marine biology and it was where his love for the ocean began, albeit on a different island. They’d also offered him a scholarship, so it made sense, he’d just have to get a job while he was there to cover whatever costs weren’t included in the scholarship. He’d be somewhere he loved, studying something he enjoyed and he’d be an entire ocean away from his screaming parents. Lately they were screaming at each other instead of him (which was a first) and both he and Gray knew they were receiving mail from two different divorce lawyers. So. Hawaii. It made sense - but when Gray found his acceptance letter things suddenly became a lot more complicated. His little brother wasn’t keen on him being an entire ocean away, leaving _him_ to deal with their parents’ aggressive separation. He wouldn’t even visit, Gray argued, he wouldn’t have the money to fly back more than once a year considering the costs he would have to cover on top of the scholarship. He supposed it was fair that Gray was upset. After all, he wouldn’t like to be left in this situation on his own either, but he also wasn’t willing to give up a degree in marine biology. 

Then Aunt Claire called and offered him a deal - he attended an Ivy League college on the mainland and she would pay for any costs not covered by a scholarship. She knew for a fact that he’d also been accepted into marine biology and ecology at Brown and that was a hell of a lot closer for his family to visit than Hawaii. So he went to Brown. On long weekends Gray caught the bus up to see him, to tell him all about life with his mother and how he barely ever sees their father anymore. During breaks Zach either took extra courses in order to graduate faster, or he went on diving trips with friends. He finally got his open water scuba certification, but found he barely needed it - he preferred free diving anyway. 

By the time Gray’s old enough to receive his acceptance letter from Harvard, finishing high school early like the genius he is, Zach’s graduating Brown with a masters in marine biology and ecology and leaving for the University of Hawaii for a six month stint of post-graduate work there. He learns a lot, falls in love with the islands all over again and rejects offer after offer from the US Navy to work for them in an animal training program, because he thinks he knows what they’re training those animals to do and he wants no part in it. 

The trouble really starts when he takes his first job. He’s built a small reputation due to his qualifications, coupled with his age, but his lack of experience in the research field and refusal to work with the military hasn’t left him with a lot of options. Aunt Claire offers for him to come and work with them at Jurassic World even though it’s out of his specialisation, but she knows even as the words leave her mouth that he’ll decline. He hasn’t seen her in years now, but they’ve kept in touch by phone and email and she still knows him better than he knows himself. That’s Claire for you - shit with animals, but great at reading people. She calls in a favour. 

Masrani Global has fingers in a lot pies, especially in animal research and that’s how Zach ends up at SeaWorld. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to note here that I'm not an expert on orcas, animal trainers or anything like that. Everything here comes from research through documentaries and the internet. Later scenes depicting injury recovery are based on personal experience, though clearly my experience wasn't a killer whale attack. 
> 
> Also, I understand that the views put forth in Blackfish can be viewed as prejudiced like any other piece of media work and that that might not be everyone's cup of tea, but considering JW touches strongly on the negative implications of keeping certain animals (dinosaurs, whatever) in captivity and trying to train them, I think it fits perfectly.


	2. Zulu

“I know Aunt Claire, it’s just not the best time at the moment.” He can practically hear her rolling her eyes a whole country away.

“It’s never going to be the ‘best time’ Zach, but it’s been years since I’ve seen you and Gray’s on spring break soon and you know he’d love it if you came with him.”

Gray’s almost finished a palaeontology degree at Harvard (like no one saw that coming) and Claire had organised for him to get some experience working with the researchers at Jurassic World, a stint that would prove a valuable asset in ensuring his future employment. While a fair amount of the palaeontology field were wary of InGen’s creations, internships at Jurassic World were highly sought after considering Masrani Global only employed world leaders in their fields. It would be a great learning experience for him. 

“Not to mention that I haven’t seen you in years,” Claire continued on and Zach sighed, rubbing a palm over his face. 

“Ok, I’ll think about it.” He acquiesced, knowing she could hear the tiredness in his voice and hoping she’d just drop it for now. 

“Ok, that’s all I ask.” He knew that it wasn’t, she’d bug him about this in the most logical way possible until he gave in, because this is Claire here, but he’d deal with it later when he wasn’t so exhausted. 

“Are you still doing water work?” She asked sharply, not waiting for an answer before she continued, “because if you’re tired that isn’t really safe is it?” 

He sighed as he pulled his boots back on, slipping out of his team’s little office and making his way towards the back pools. “I’ll be fine Aunt Claire,” he tried to sound assuring, “I’m good at this remember?” 

She clucked her tongue. “It doesn’t matter how good you are at it Zach, they’re animals and if you make one mistake…” she trailed off. He knew she was right, of course she was. Even if Claire didn’t see animals the way he did, the way most people did even, she was smart enough to know what they were capable of, especially the animals he worked with. 

“I promise I’ll be fine Aunt Claire.” He wasn’t exaggerating when he said he was good at it though, he was. He was also one of the only trainers here with any sort of formal education in marine life - the only prerequisites for trainers here were their personality and fitness. It made him a little uneasy, especially considering the few incidents they’d had in the last year, but all he could do was worry about himself and try to help the people around him understand their jobs better. 

“As long as you promise then,” Claire brought him back to the present, sounding as put out as he knew she would be. “Let me know when you decide if I should book you a ticket next to Gray.” 

Zach smiled a little as he reached the back pool, swiping his ID card to enter and giving a wave to security on his way past. “You know I will Aunt Claire.” He pulled off his shirt and pants revealing the wetsuit underneath and kicked off his boots again. “Look, I’ve gotta go and see Zulu now, I’ll call you later tonight to hear all about your new exhibit ok?” 

Claire snorts, “It’s classified, but nice try.” 

Zach rolled his eyes. “Ok then!” He shook his head with a smile and threw his gear on the ground. “Bye Aunt Claire.” He hung up his phone, throwing it into one of his boots so he wouldn’t lose another smartphone to water damage. He really should just leave the phone indoors, but hey, he’s twenty-two years old and while he’s not the most social guy, he’s still attached to his phone whenever he’s not in the water. 

He trudges over to Katie, his spotter for the day and begins to help her with their food prep. 

“Your aunt giving you trouble again?” She smiles wryly and Zach groans. 

“She’s just worried, that’s all.” He looks to Katie, “and she really wants me to visit.” Katie’s one of the only trainers he’s really close with at SeaWorld, mostly because the girl has her head on right and there’s actually a brain in there. She’s also got a wicked sense of humour. Katie’s the only person who knows about his family because Zach tends to talk to her a lot about Gray and Aunt Claire and what they’re doing, while she tells stories of her boyfriend’s antics in his job at the Zoo. They like to joke that he’s from the dark side, preferring land animals and all. 

“Really, you’d think you’d be the one worried about her, I mean, she works on an island that has a resident Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

Zach laughs a little. “Yeah, but they don’t exactly ride around on Rexy’s back. No one goes in there with her.” 

Katie shrugs, “that’s true, I guess. Sounds like no fun at all.” She smirks. 

“It was much easier when I spent my day with Splash though,” the corner of his lip pulled up into a smile thinking about his first charge. Splash was a California sea lion and she and Zach bonded instantly. His bond with Splash and their success together however, ultimately ended up hurting them as upper management decided Zach’s talent was too much to waste on a sea lion. 

“Doesn’t your mum still think you spend your whole day with Splash?” She’s laughing, elbowing him in the ribs a little harder than strictly necessary. 

“Nope,” he grinned, “that kind of went out the window the first time she saw me on TV.” He had tried to keep the move from Splash to Zulu under wraps for a while, because he knew his mum and  she was going to _freak out._ Not to mention she’d probably kill Claire for getting him the job in the first place. It wasn’t too hard at first, since he tends to go and visit Splash every day anyway, he’d just take a few pictures while he was there, a video on his GoPro every so often and send them to his mother. Once his shows with Zulu made it online however…

“Wow.” Katie stopped for a minute. “I bet she was impressed,” she said sarcastically. 

“Well how did your parents take it?” He retorted, taking two buckets of fish and moving towards to pool. 

She didn’t answer, only grinning. He knew her parents had taken it just as well as his had - that is to say, not well at all. 

Zach whistled sharply, watching as a great black shape rose up out of the pool, sending a small pressure wave cresting toward them. “Morning Zulu,” he huffed, reaching down to pat her nose softly. She clicked at him, opening her mouth wide to stick out her tongue and show off rows of long teeth. He threw her some fish from one of his buckets and tilted his head to get a better look at her dorsal fin. 

“It’s definitely curling over,” Katie commented from behind him, before snickering at how Zulu tilted her head to the side to copy Zach. 

“It’s collapsing,” he sighed, “the pool is too shallow for her - for all of them.” He throws some more fish in her mouth and pats the side of her face softly. “You need to spend less time on the surface girl.” 

Zulu huffs in his face and he’ll be damned if she doesn’t understand what he’s saying. “Yeah, I know it’s not your fault.” 

“This doesn’t happen a lot in the wild, does it?” Katie asks as she sidles up next to him, throwing Zulu a few fish herself. 

“Not at all really,” Zach stretches, careful to step back from the pool first. “She’s showing more signs of aggression towards Tango when she has to share a pool with him too.” Tango is one of their adult males and Zulu definitely picks on him - he always comes out of a tank with her worse for wear. Zach’s not afraid to admit his girl is a bully and it might start to become a bigger problem. 

“Well she has even less space when he’s there. Makes sense.” Katie shrugs and Zach agrees. Zulu would have to swim the circumference of their main pool over a thousand times a day just to match the distance she would travel in the same amount of time as a wild orca - and the main pool’s twice the size of her tank. Her increasing agitation isn’t exactly unwarranted. 

“Sometimes I wonder what we’re doing here.” He says quietly and Katie shakes her head. 

“Don’t ever doubt that seeing you is the highlight of Zulu’s day. Where would she be without us, huh?” 

She hip checks him on her way past and Zach smiles a little. She really is his best (only) friend in the park - the only person that doesn’t think that he’s just moody and antisocial whenever he’s out of the water. 

“Come on, we have a show to run later, lets get organised.”

He’s been working with Zulu for about a year now and he feels like she’s gotten bigger since they first met if that’s even possible. Zulu’s a first generation - a captive born orca as opposed to a wild caught one, so she’s never seen the real ocean in her life and she’s at least as old as Zach is. Her parents were some of the largest whales he’s seen in captivity and she’s definitely taken after them at almost eighteen feet long, weighing in at over five thousand pounds. He’s swum with a lot of marine life, great whites and whale sharks among them, but nothing is as awe-inspiring as being in the water with a killer whale - their presence demands respect with a healthy dose of fear on the side. 

When it’s time for the final show of the day only a few hundred people show up which Zach is completely fine with. Sometimes it’s easier with a smaller audience, he feels like he doesn’t have to try as hard to put on an overly-peppy and enthusiastic face. Anyone who knows him knows that the live shows are his least favourite part of his job, to put it simply - he hates them. Zach is _not_ peppy, that much has been established since he was about twelve years old and everybody knew it. The shows meant he had to put on a smile, pretend he was enjoying himself entertaining hundreds of people and not doing the marine research he thought he’d be doing here at the park. 

Still, if he can get just one extra person to fall in love with marine life it’s a job well done he supposed, so he pinned on a smile stepped out into the open air. 

The show was going well for the most part, Zulu doing her job perfectly, responsive and playful. He started off with a ride around the tank, ‘surfing’ on her back. It had taken him a little while to master this one when he started training, his balance wasn’t exactly the best and he fell into the water numerous times, but Zulu had simply picked him up on her nose and pushed him back to the edge. Eventually he’d become quite good at it - she wasn’t exactly a small breadth to balance on after all. So they executed the surf ride perfectly, followed by a foot push from which he slid across the stage. He took a minute to speak to the audience then, telling them a little more about Zulu and orcas in general. 

She did a few little tricks for him while he threw her fish as positive reinforcement and the crowd laughed as she stuck her tongue out at him, chittering with glee. The biggest part of their routine, the big finale so to speak, was a rocket hop. It’s where Zach dives into the pool and waits for Zulu to come up from underneath him, pick him up with her nose and throw him in the air. It took him a while to seem anything resembling graceful with this particular move as well, but now he can even flip in the air before he's diving back down into the pool. 

He moves forward, leaving the bucket of fish behind him with Katie and the rest of the team and whistles to Zulu that they’re going to do this one last move. He dives into the water, down, down, at least fifteen feet below the surface and he waits. There’s a beat where his brain ticks over as he realises Zulu should have pushed him up by now, that it’s strange for her to miss her cue considering how well she’s done throughout the whole show and then her teeth are closing around his ankles and she's pulling him down.

His mind races as he’s tugged further and further into the dark water until just as suddenly as it began, she releases him and he _swims_ , arms pumping as he propels himself to the top of the pool, breaking the surface with a strangled gasp of air. He’s only there for a second though, long enough to catch Katie’s panicked yell as Zulu grabs him again, pulling him underneath the surface and this time tossing him from side to side. His brain can hardly keep up with what’s happening and he’s lucky it’s ingrained in him not to take a breath while he’s underwater or the force of Zulu’s movements might have him drowning. As it is, he goes limp and lets her carry him further to the bottom of the pool. Waiting, praying that she’ll let him go again.

She doesn’t let him go, but she does bring him back to the top, spiralling her body through the water. As he breaks the surface this time he starts to ventilate, thanking god for his experience free diving and all the time he’s spent practicing holding his breath. He can hear Katie and the rest of the team yelling out to him and they’re calling for Zulu too, trying to distract her, to get her to either let him go or come over to the side of the pool so they can try and contain her but Zulu’s too smart not to realise what they’re doing. 

She drags him under again, ignoring noise, food, any attempts being made to get her attention. He went limp again and held his breath as she took him right to the bottom of the pool and waited. It had to be at least a minute, probably more before she brought him back to the surface again, but she never let go of him completely. She still had one foot in her mouth and Zach wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or grateful this he couldn’t feel anything below his shins. 

This time while he breathed he noticed they were attempting to clear out the stadium, guests having still been present while Zulu was dragging him under. She stayed above water for a moment and Zach ran a hand over her side hesitantly. 

“Come on Zulu,” he said quietly. “What are you doing?” She clamped down harder with her teeth and he scrunched his eyes closed. He kept running his hand down her side trying to soothe her. “Come on Zulu,” he repeated, “Come on, you gotta let go of my foot.”

He exhaled shakily as a moment later her jaws opened and she released his ankle. She nudged him softly for a second before taking his other foot in her mouth and dragging him down again. His eyes widened as she pinned him to the bottom of the pool with her body, not flattening him with her weight, but it was enough to keep him down. He was counting the seconds as they ticked by and by the time he reached two minutes he closed his eyes. He was trying not to shake but he knew this was probably it, he was going to die here in a god damn amusement park, in not the ocean but a _pool_ , killed by an animal that he loved - _his_ animal. 

Slowly, she let his body begin to float upwards, jaws still clamped down tight. When he reached the top this time he was gasping and he knew he needed to stay calm or he’d hyperventilate. He stroked Zulu’s face again and kept trying to talk her down but knew he was probably just wasting oxygen, he didn’t think she was going to let him go at this point. 

“Zach!” Katie said from the side of the pool and he could see that she was a hair’s breadth away from crying. Slowly, his team were sliding a net into the water to seperate the main part of the pool from the ledge they had been performing on. As the net slipped in Zulu perked up, swimming lazily toward it, his foot still firmly secured between her teeth. She began inspecting the net and Zach took a deep breath in.

“Zulu, let me go.” 

“Zulu, let me _go_.”

He wanted to shove at her as hard as he could, to try and kick out at her face, anything to get her to release him but he knew that would only make things worse so he kept patting her along her side and let her hold his foot until she was interested enough in the net to let him go. 

As soon as her teeth slid off his foot he was throwing himself over the net towards the shallows, arms pumping as he desperately tried to escape Zulu who he could hear throwing herself over the net behind him. The few meters to the shallow stage-area felt like miles, but eventually he reached it. He tried to run before whimpering and falling straight back down, his feet wouldn’t support him at all. He choked as he looked back to see Zulu charging toward him, prepared to breach the shallow stage in a slide and he scrambled backwards, dragging his body toward the edge. 

Katie grabbed him from behind, hands under her shoulders and hauled him backwards, over the ledge and out of the pool onto the concrete. He dragged in more air, gasping as he looked up at her and she laughed. “Good thing you’re such a skinny ass.” She spat out before her face crumpled into a sob. She looked between him and the pool before falling to her knees. “Oh my god Zach. Oh my god.” 

He couldn’t speak, he could only breathe and squeeze her hand tightly, but she was echoing his own thoughts. His eyes darted over to the paramedic crew that were pushing Katie out of the way and clearing the space around him. They were saying his name and asking him questions but he couldn’t answer them, he couldn’t even process all the things they were asking him as they shoved an oxygen mask on his face and pulled him onto a stretcher. 

He looked back at the pool to see Zulu swimming in circles, agitated. It was the last thing he saw before he passed out. 

  

* * *

 

The next time he wakes he’s in a white room that must be a hospital but he doesn’t know which one. “Where am I?” He grumbles to himself and is startled to receive a response almost instantly.

“Orlando.” His Aunt Claire deadpans from the seat next to his bed, raising an eyebrow stiffly. 

“Claire?” He squints and begins to pull himself up in bed. “What are you doing here? Who’s running the park?” 

He’s never really seen such fury on his aunt’s face before but she takes a deep breath and visibly calms herself down before answering. “I’m here because I’m your emergency contact and you almost got yourself killed by a _killer whale!_ And Lowery and Vivian can handle the control room for a few days with Simon’s direction. Gray’s flying in soon and then I’m going to see the Masrani Global lawyers to talk about suing SeaWorld and what the _hell_ were you thinking Zach?!” She stands up and starts pacing the room furiously. “You were exhausted when you spoke to me, why were you even doing water work? Someone else should have done the show, you could have had the day off!”

He brain felt like scrambled eggs and he was struggling to keep up with everything she was saying so he just raised his arms and yelled “Claire!” She froze mid step and put her head in her hands.

“Aunt Claire, I’m fine. I’m alive and I’m ok. There’s no need to freak out and let’s not call lawyers or anybody else for that matter. I’m fine.” He looked her in the eye to let her know he was serious. “And nothing happened because I was tired, I didn’t make a mistake.”

She shook her head, bewildered. “What happened then? Because I’ve seen the video footage Zach and that whale wasn’t messing around, it wasn’t ‘play’! That was aggression.”

He frowned a little. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know. One minute everything was fine and then the next…” He motioned down at his feet. He tried to lift them up towards him and found that he could only move one. He could feel them both though and it certainly wasn’t nice. 

“What’s wrong with my feet?” He asked quietly as Claire slowly sank back down into the chair next to him. 

“A killer whale tried to eat them, that’s what’s wrong with them.” She grumbled before rolling her eyes at his impatient look. “Fine. 238 stitches for the puncture wounds from it’s teeth and a severed ligament in the left ankle. She bit down to the bone.” 

He winced at the reminder of Zulu’s teeth in his feet as Claire pulled back the blankets to let him see under them. “The doctor says you should recover most of your movement with the proper physiotherapy, but it might be at least six months before you can get back to proper exercise.” Her voice softened as she grabbed his hand “you’re going to have to learn to walk again Zach, he said your body probably won’t remember the movements so you’ll have to teach it again.”

He took a breath in. “Ok. That’s fine. How hard can it be?” He’s already relatively fit, he had to be to work with the orcas, so he spent a fair bit of time in the gym at the park. “I can do this.” 

Claire smiled. “I know you can.” She shook her head, “I just wish you’d stuck with Splash.” 

Zach groaned before laughing, covering his face with his hands. “Me too Aunt Claire, me too.” He’d fought hard to stick with the sea lions actually, he preferred their gentle nature, the smaller pools and the fact that they felt a little more predictable than the orcas - exhibit A. But there was nothing to be done about that now. 

“Wait, what do you mean you saw the video footage?” He frowned, her earlier statement coming back to him. Had she used her position with Masrani to get ahold of the surveillance footage from the main pool? 

Claire’s expression darkened. “It was on the internet Zach, it was during a live show remember.”

His face fell immediately. “Did you-?”

“Yes.” She assured him. “I had a talk with SeaWorld’s lawyers, they’ve had everything on major news sites removed so far but that’s only the big ones and once it’s out there…”

“You can’t ever get it back.” He finished, closing his eyes. “Gray’s seen it then?” He asked quietly, trying to roll onto his side to face her.

“Yes, I only just managed to convince him not to tell Karen before he flew out here.” 

Zach’s head shot up, “wait, mum doesn't know?” 

Claire’s brow furrowed, “it’s my fault you were working there in the first place, there’s no way I was telling her until you were awake to calm her down.”

Zach sighed. “Ok.” He lay back down on the bed. “Let’s make Gray call her. He’s her favourite.”

Claire smirked before agreeing, “sounds good to me.” She handed him a bottle of water from the bedside table. “How are you feeling anyway?” 

He pushed his finger down on the painkiller button attached to his IV. “Peachy.”

“You’re not going back there.” Claire said quietly and behind his eyes Zach saw a flash of teeth and dark, dark water. 

“No. I’m not.” 

That’s how three months later he found himself stepping off a cruise ship onto a small island called Isla Nublar. 

 


	3. Owen

“Zach!” Gray yelled his name as he ran toward him, pushing through the throngs of people disembarking the catamaran (ship was probably a better term, the thing was huge). “Zach, you’re here!”

He smiled, wincing a little as his brother slammed into him, pushing him off balance and making him throw a foot out behind him to catch himself. 

“Sorry! Sorry!” Gray righted him quickly, jumping backwards as though he’d burnt him and Zach sighed.

“It’s ok Gray, I’m not made of glass.” He threw his backpack back over his shoulder and pushed his little brother forward toward the resort. “Can we get to the hotel though, I would like to sit down for a bit. You can tell me all about your internship.” He knows Gray has been working with the apatosaurus’ and he has to admit he _is_ kind of interested to know what that’s been like. They’re huge after all. 

He sees a giant mass of black and white behind his eyes and shakes his head vigorously. Gray is staring at him strangely, but he simply shrugs and continues to push his brother along with the crowd. They ride a monorail through a massive, pretentious set of gates and get off at the next stop walking into what seems to be the main hub of activity in the park.

“Ok. The hotel’s this way.” He leads them past a row of bars and restaurants and Zach is silently cataloguing them all as he makes his way through, noting which would be good to dine at later and which would be good for a drink. His headphones slip from their position around his neck and he shifts a hand up to catch them, pushing them back into place.

“There’s so many cool people here,” Gray is telling him, “I finally got to meet Lowery and Vivian! Lowery is so funny and he likes all the original dinosaurs just like I do and Vivian is so nice, she’s always bringing me coffee if I’m hanging around the control room with Aunt Claire and stuff. Oh and Zara, she’s really nice too! She sometimes reminds me of my schedule even though she’s never anywhere near my areas.” His brother’s mouth is moving a mile a minute and Zach smiles. It’s been a while but at least some things never change. 

“And then there’s Owen! I’ve only met him a few times but he’s _awesome_! He trains the raptors over in the restricted section and they listen to him Zach, it’s amazing!” He frowns a little at that. Velociraptors have the highest aggression index of all the dinosaurs InGen has brought back to life, there’s no way they’d follow a human’s commands and this guy was crazy to even try it. He definitely wasn’t fussed on Gray being anywhere near them either.

“Barry’s really nice too, he let me watch a training exercise with him and explained their behaviours, it was really fascinating!” Gray was still talking about various people from the park by the time they reached the Hilton and entered the elevator. 

“This is your key,” he handed a swipe card over, “your room is right next to mine.” Predictably they weren’t rooms, they were suites on the top floor and they were particularly roomy. Thanks Aunt Claire. He shook his hair out of his eyes, falling onto the bed softly. His ankles were throbbing, particularly the left one and after the long trip he really just needed to recharge. 

“I guess I’ll just let you be then…” Gray trailed off quietly and Zach winced. 

“Sorry,” he sighed. “I just need a little bit ok? Then I’ll come to dinner with you.”

Gray nodded his head. “Yeah, of course.” He started making his way toward the door. “We’re all going out tonight so you can meet everyone, I even managed to get Aunt Claire to come.” He sounded pretty proud of himself for that one and Zach guessed it kind of was an achievement - their aunt didn’t exactly socialise with her workmates outside of work hours.

“Alright, I’ll see you then.” 

He listened for the sound of the door clicking closed before he rolled over hesitantly. The room was nice, decorated in a way that reminded him of his time on Hawaii and he found it at least a little reassuring. He stood up to unpack his clothes. He wasn’t lying to Gray when he said he was exhausted, it was just that his exhaustion was more mental than physical. Once he’d gotten all his stuff into the wardrobe - he’d probably be here for a while after all - he made his way into the bathroom to fill the tub with hot water. Sometimes soaking his sore legs helped with the way they cramped up and got his movement flowing a little better. 

The last couple of months had been rough. Physiotherapy was so demanding he almost wanted to give up more than once, but he pushed through. He hadn’t been back to SeaWorld since the incident, though he’d spoken to Katie on the phone. He just couldn’t bring himself to go back yet, if ever…and that was ok, right? He’d had a traumatic experience there, hell, he’d nearly died. He still had nightmares almost every night about being dragged underwater and pressed to the cement at the bottom of the pool, so why would he want to go back? 

He hadn’t been back in the water either. His doctors had thought aquatic physiotherapy would be easier on him at first to help him learn to walk again, but he couldn’t make himself get in the pool. He wasn’t afraid of _water_ or anything - he was in the bath right now - but if it could be done on land then maybe he should just do it on land, where humans were meant to be. 

There was no questioning that the incident with Zulu had shaken him. It shook him to the core. Everything he loved, everything he thought he knew about animals was wrong. He knew, _knew_ , regardless of what SeaWorld had later told the public that there was no ‘trainer error’ involved in what happened. He had done everything routine, the same way he’d done it a thousand times before. Whatever happened, happened with Zulu, not him. 

His phone buzzed next to the tub and he picked it up to see ‘Claire’ flashing across the screen. _Dinner is in half an hour. Winston’s Steakhouse. Leave me alone with them and you won’t like what happens._  

Awesome. That’s Claire for you, the only one in the family that hated needless socialising more than he did. 

He groans as he pulls himself out of the bath, stumbling onto the hard tiles. He stares down at the mess of his feet, scars criss-crossing all the way up his shins. Clear teeth marks in perfect curves. They’re pretty ugly - his mother cried the first time she saw them uncovered - but thankfully the scar tissue has finally started to dull in it’s sensitivity, so every brush against it isn’t setting his nerve endings alight. 

He pulls on jeans, even though it’s ridiculously hot on Isla Nublar, because he’d rather be overheating than have people stare, wondering how a twenty-three year old’s legs could possibly be so mutilated. He throws a black tee over his head and brushes his hair into some semblance of style with his fingertips. He looks ok, he thinks. Besides the bags under his eyes and his extremely pale skin from being cooped up inside for months on end. He wondered if his old friends from Brown would even recognise him now, he looked so different. 

His feet are slipped into Nikes because he still walks with a limp and walking is hard enough without a decent set of shoes or boots with good ankle support - flip-flops are all but eradicated from his wardrobe now. 

His phone is in his pocket along with a bottle of pain pills and he ambles into the elevator, making his way to what is surely going to be an exorbitantly priced steakhouse by the look of this island and sure enough by the time he reaches the door he can see people dining in suits and formal dresses. Thankfully though, he can actually see Gray from the entrance and the people he’s with, minus Aunt Claire of course and a woman sitting next to her, are all dressed as casually as he is.

He can see his little brother’s face light up as he approaches and he knows Gray thought he wasn’t coming at all. It’s fair, he supposes. He’s let him down a lot in their short lives so far, so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that he’d think that way. Claire turns at Gray’s expression to find him and jumps from her seat, pulling Zach into a hug.

“Zach! I’m so glad you’re here.” She almost hisses and he can’t help but laugh. She is so uncomfortable in this situation he can tell; and unlike him, she’s pretty bad at acting like she’s enjoying herself. He’s pulled into the open seat at her side and finds himself looking around at the full table. 

“This is my other nephew, Zach.” 

A round of hellos are said across the table and Zach takes stock of what’s around him. The woman on Claire’s other side is Zara, her assistant and Zach has actually spoken to her on the phone before, but they’d never met in person. Then there’s Vivian, Lowery (who looks exactly like he’d imagined - is that an old Jurassic Park shirt?), Barry, the man Gray had been talking about earlier and directly across from him was a ridiculously good looking man who was introduced as Owen. All of the immediate attraction rising in his chest was smothered at that. This was the crazy raptor guy? Why was the only good looking one in the group the crazy guy?

He was saved from the awkward post-introduction conversation by a waiter coming over and asking what they’d like to drink. Zach was quick to answer. “Tequila please.” Only to have Claire slap him over the back of the head. 

“He’ll have a coke.” 

The others were looking at her like she was slightly crazy, but she only maintained a fierce glare. “You’re not mixing tequila with painkillers.”

Zach scratched the back of his head uncomfortably in the short silence before Gray jumped into action and gave the waiter his order. He dropped his eyes back to the table and pulled out his phone, fiddling with message app but not actually sending anything. It was a defence mechanism of his - whenever he was in an uncomfortable social situation he just pulled out his phone and pretended he was supremely busy. He’s almost certain it’s a habit he got from Aunt Claire now that he thinks about it.

He was flicking through his last few messages from Katie - some picture messages of her with Splash, when he felt the hair on his neck stand up. When he looked up he caught Owen gazing at him intensely. It was like the man was cataloguing everything about him, trying to figure him out. Their drinks came soon after and Zach slipped the bottle of pills out of his pocket, tipping two into his hand and swallowing them quickly, all under the watchful gaze of the raptor trainer. It was getting a little bit too weird when Lowery suddenly broke the silence. 

“So! Zach, what do you do? Are you a student?” 

He met the other mans enthusiastic gaze and winced a little. The guy was obviously trying to lighten the mood and break the awkward silence but he was leading down a more sensitive line of questioning than Zach really wanted to discuss. 

“Not anymore. I graduated from Brown two years ago.”

Vivian raised an eyebrow. “Another genius huh?” She ruffled Gray’s hair. “Seems like you Mitchell boys have it all going for you.”

He cleared his throat, “yeah, seems like it.” 

“So what did you study? And what have you been doing since then?” Lowery prodded and Zach leaned back in his chair. 

“I have a masters in marine biology and ecology.” He took a deep breath, “and um…I was working at SeaWorld.” Everyones attention seems to perk up at that and his stomach feels like lead. 

“An animal trainer? Cool!” Lowery comments and Zara sends him a sideways glance. She knows about what happened to him. How much of the story she’s heard he isn't sure, but she organised everything when Claire got the call from the hospital so she knows enough. 

“Was?” Owen asks, his gaze burning into Zach’s. “Not anymore?” The older man glances down at the pills on the table and back up to Zach’s face. He’s a quick thinker, that’s for sure. There’s an intensity to him that makes Zach bristle. 

“I’m on leave at the moment.” He says and leaves it at that. The others seem to get the idea that the questions aren’t exactly endearing them to him and the conversation turns to Gray and what he’s been learning and Zach breathes a sigh of relief. He feels kind of bad, after all what other questions are you supposed to ask someone you’re just meeting? Unfortunately he’s just not normal. Not anymore. He can feel Claire grip his arm just under the table’s edge and squeeze lightly. 

“How’s physiotherapy?” She asks him quietly, quietly enough that only Zara can hear them. 

“It’s ok.” He shrugs. “It’s hard.” 

She nods her head sympathetically even though he knows she really has no idea. 

“So I thought some of the others could take you out later this week - show you some of the reefs? There’s some good sites around the island, it is the tropics after all.” 

He turned his gaze to her fully, brows furrowing. “No thanks, I think I’ll just stick around the resort area, maybe check out that petting zoo.”

She frowns and then her brain takes over and he can practically see the lightbulb come on. “Have you been out since…?” He knows what she means - has he been out for a dive anywhere since the incident.

“No. I…I’m still recovering.” 

He can tell that she doesn’t believe that for a second and she’s got reason not to. His entire life no one could keep him out of the water, it was difficult from about sixteen onwards to keep him out of fins and now he doesn’t want to go diving at all. 

“Have you been in the water at all?” Her words are stern and he curses the fact that they’re so alike. That she’s so damn perceptive. 

“I shower at night.” He rolls his eyes. 

Her lips thin. “I know what happened was…bad.” She says, rolling the word over on her tongue like she knows it’s not adequate enough for what she means, “but the water is your life, Zach. It always has been.” 

He shrugs softly, moving his left leg up to rest his foot on his knee so he could massage the scar tissue firmly through his jeans. “Well maybe I’m better off without it.” 

“Maybe you’re just better off without Zulu.” She says bitterly and it hurts him a little inside. He still hasn’t come to terms with what happened, but especially he hasn’t come to terms with the fact that it was Zulu. She was his girl - he thought they had a bond - a relationship built on trust - but she had turned on him and that hurt. A lot. 

Unfortunately when the food came, the conversation turned back to Zach which he supposed was inevitable considering his arrival was the reason they were even having dinner together in the first place. 

“So, are you a trainer or a researcher?” Vivian asks him and he desperately wants to look her in the eye and say he just worked in the gift shop, but considering they knew his masters came from Brown he figured that one wasn’t going to fly. 

“Trainer,” he told her and out the corner of his eye he could see Owen’s gaze flick back to him quickly, ceasing the quiet conversation he’d been having with Barry. 

“You must be good at controlling the animals then, considering your age and everything?” It’s an innocent inquiry and he knows she works in the control room but he still thinks its a little naive for that to come from someone working at Jurassic World. 

“You can’t control them.” He shook his head. “It’s a relationship based on mutual respect. Trust.” It’s something he’s said a thousand times before, especially to the other trainers at SeaWorld, the new ones, the ones with little experience that think they can just blow a whistle and get their animals to dance around. It sounds hollow this time though and he feels his chest ache for the optimism he used to have. Did such a relationship ever exist? Or was it just his own idealist thinking that made it seem that way?

He’s not the best at decoding social situations - lets be honest he understood animals better than humans and look at how that turned out - but he’s pretty sure that Owen is looking at him like he hung the moon and Zach doesn’t like the gleam in his eye. 

“You never said what kind of animals you trained.” The man finally spoke up, leaning back in his chair. 

Zach bites his lip and runs a hand through his messy hair before dropping his gaze to the table. “Orcas.” He says quietly. “I trained orcas.”

Before anyone can comment on the past-tense he’s out of his seat and halfway back to the hotel. 

 

* * *

 

The problem with Owen Grady is that he seems to see right through Zach as though he’s made of glass, so when he turns up at the door to his suite an hour after he’d fled dinner without a word, Zach isn’t exactly ecstatic. 

“Hi.” He says wearily, leaning against the open door, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Hi.” Owen copies him, leaning in the doorway a little too close to his personal bubble for Zach to be entirely comfortable. 

“Are you here for a reason, or?” He comes off a little snarky but refuses to apologise, figuring he’d made it pretty clear he didn’t feel like being social when he left the restaurant halfway through a meal. 

“Just wondering if you wanted to talk. Can I come in?”

Zach frowns. “No and no.” He tilts his head slightly, studying the man in front of him. Well, the muscles on the man in front of him, but he was standing so close that was kind of an inevitability. 

They stand in silence for a few more moments, at an impasse. 

“I used to train dolphins, sea lions occasionally too - in the Navy.” 

It makes sense. Now that he’s been told, Owen definitely looks like a military man. He would like to say he doesn’t know why Owen’s standing in front of him, throwing out random facts but he does know. It’s an attempt at Quid Pro Quo. The raptor trainer wants to figure him out and thinks that if he offers up some mutual ground, Zach will open up. 

“Yeah, I got offered a spot in that program too.” He shrugs. 

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Yeah. I turned it down.” Instead of being offended at what is clearly a blunt dismissal, Owen smirks as though he finds him particularly endearing and takes a step closer. 

“You sure you don’t wanna invite me in?” 

Zach rolls his eyes. “Positive.” He then puts two palms to Owen’s chest and shoves him out of the doorway, slamming it in his face. 

If he leans back against the door and takes in a sharp breath before gathering himself again, well, no ones around to see it. 

 


	4. Raptors

The problem with rehabilitation is that it’s slow. Zach doesn’t like slow much, it’s frustrating. He wants to be able to run on the treadmill rather than just walk slowly along, gripping the handrails tightly. Not that he has any business running anywhere, but the fact that he can’t do it is enough to make him want to.

The gym in the Hilton is nice enough and quiet in the morning too, which he appreciates. He supposes that not many people come on holidays to such an expensive place and want to spend their time in the gym. It’s only the hardcore gym junkies or the control freaks that can’t let go of their morning routine that have filtered in and out around him over the last couple of hours. 

Most of them can’t help but stare at least a little, but that’s ok, he expects that - he has his scars on display after all. It’s better when he’s in the gym to have people glance away, wondering what happened than to have them asking questions as to why a guy in his twenties is only walking slowly along the treadmill for an hour. Here, it’s a little funny. Clearly they think he works here and he’s been attacked by a dinosaur. It’s not _that_ far from the truth really and it provides him with a little macabre amusement as he strains to finish his walk. 

He pulls his headphones off as he sits on the edge of the treadmill, removing his sneakers so he can stretch out his ankles. It’s even more important now that he takes care after his workouts, one mistake and he could be paying for it for the rest of the day. He’s almost done when his phone vibrates with a text message from Claire. _Zara will be picking you up in half an hour_. 

Well then. 

True to her word, half an hour later he finds himself opening the door to his aunt’s assistant, impeccably dressed as always. 

“Morning Zara.” He smiles a little, slipping outside and closing the door behind him. He takes the cup she offers him and sips cautiously. 

“Your aunt told me you liked coffee.” She said, setting off down the hall. 

He moved after her, boots thumping softly along the carpet. “Thanks.” He was still a little confused as to what was going on but he assumed he was being taken to Claire for some reason or another. 

Zara must have noticed his confused look as they entered the elevator because she smiled a little before saying, “Claire wants to see you in the control room.” 

He laughed, “thanks, but I figured that much out. I don’t suppose you know why?” He’s a little concerned to be honest, he has a feeling that she’s going to turn his little break into her latest pet project and knowing Claire she won’t stop until she gets what she wants.

“Not at all.” Zara shook her head and Zach took that to be the end of the conversation. They entered another building, this one with a lot more tourists inside. There was a hologram in the centre of the room of some sort of dinosaur flickering back and forth - it was kind of cool actually, just don’t ask him what it is. Gray would know, but to be honest, apart from the main, especially famous dinosaurs, Zach couldn’t really tell them all apart. Fish were his thing. 

They went up a staircase and down a hallway lined by glass walls. Strangely enough he couldn’t really see anyone around in any of the offices. It was only 9:00am he supposed, but still, it should be early enough for the working day to start, surely? Right at the end of the corridor they entered a large room which he immediately realised must be the control room judging by the screens covering the walls. 

“Zach!” He was immediately accosted by Gray, who grabbed his arm and pulled him over to where Aunt Claire was talking quietly with Lowery and another man at a desk covered in tiny dinosaur figurines. It was definitely Lowery’s workstation that was for sure, but the other man Zach hadn’t met before, judging by his suit though he was important. 

“Zach,” Claire said when he reached them, “I’d like you to meet Mr. Masrani.”

The older man put out a hand which Zach shook firmly, plastering on a smile to cover up his surprise. A little warning would have been nice. “It’s good to finally meet you Mr. Masrani, I’ve heard so much about you.” Occasionally at SeaWorld he’d had to go to different functions and associate with fancy guests that the park wanted to acquire funding from, so he’d pretty much perfected his ‘nice to meet you’ face. 

“Ah, I’ve heard so much about you too, Zach!” the CEO commented, patting him on the shoulder. “Claire talks about you a lot. You’re a very accomplished young man.” 

Well that’s a lie, he thinks, but keeps his fake smile plastered on anyway. “Thank you.” 

“Speaking of,” Claire speaks up, “I was hoping you’d like to help some of the trainers out this week, get a feel for the park.” 

He turns to face her sharply, frowning. “Why would I need to do that? I’m just here for a break remember?” He can see Gray light up out of the corner of his eye and knows he needs to cut this train of thought off before it gets out of hand. 

“You never know, you might decide you want to stay.” His aunt comments casually and for once he can’t tell what her angle is. 

“That sounds like a great idea!” Masrani crows, a grin lighting up his face, “in fact, I know that Jessica would love some help with the Mosasaurus and with your background I’m sure there’s much insight you could offer her.” 

He envisions the eighteen metre monster flying out of the water, jaws open to swallow a great white whole and thinks no thank you. That’s not happening. It’s not even an actual dinosaur for god’s sake. 

“Actually,” a new voice pipes up from behind him, “Zach already has a date with my girls today.” 

He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, counting to three before he opens them again. “That’s right, the mosasaurus will have to wait unfortunately.” He shrugs at Masrani with as much sincerity as he can muster up on short notice. 

“Really? You’re coming to see the velociraptors with us?” Gray asks excitedly and Zach knows there’s no way he’s quietly slipping away like he was planning to. 

“Yeah, sure buddy. Owen asked me to last night, isn’t that right?” He raised an eyebrow and turned to face the man behind him, biting his tongue as Owen smirked victoriously. 

“Of course,” he swung an arm over Zach’s shoulder, “now come on, we’re already late for their feeding time.” 

He shrugs Owen’s arm off his shoulder as roughly as he can without being overly conspicuous and turns to say goodbye to Aunt Claire who hisses lowly, “What do you mean last night?” 

“Nothing,” he murmurs quietly, “what’s with you offering me up to the mosasaurus?!” 

“I didn’t!” She elbows him in the ribs none too softly and he doesn’t quite believe a word she’s saying. 

“Don’t think this is over.” He glares, before turning to meet Gray and Owen where they’re waiting at the door. 

They made it halfway down the hallway before Gray spoke up, “well that was awkward. Do you think he knows?”  And Zach groans out loud, running a hand over his face. Does Masrani know that he was attacked by a killer whale at his last job? Of course he does, and Zach’s willing to bet that he doesn’t particularly care what happened as long as it didn’t happen in his park. 

He’s surprised that Owen refrains from commenting at all, staying silent as he leads them out of the building to a gate that says ‘staff only’ where a four-wheeler and a motorbike waits. Gray’s taken off on the four wheeler before Zach can even think about getting on the back and he’s forced to contemplate the fact that his little brother is now old enough to attempt to set him up with another man. 

“Guess it’s just you and me kid,” Owen smirks as if he hasn’t planned this all along and Zach rolls his eyes, throwing his leg over the bike and pushing himself up against the raptor trainer’s back, arms circling around his chest.

“Not a kid.” He says quietly into the other man’s ear, close enough that Owen could probably feel the brush of his lips. If he wants to play, Zach can play. There’s no reply before the bike starts up and they’re flying down the dirt track, faster than Zach thinks is necessary or advisable. He doesn’t have time to be nervous because it doesn’t take long for them to arrive at what must be the velociraptors enclosure, large cement walls and thick wire gates - all he can see inside is lush vegetation. He’s not sure how far the enclosure must extend from where they’re stopped, but he figures it would have to be pretty big to house a pack of velociraptors. 

He pulls himself off the bike and steps toward the enclosure, seeing a few people milling around on a catwalk above, but not noticing Gray about anywhere. He’s only looking around for a second before Owen’s pulling him through a gate and into what seems to be an inspection area…that or a feeding area. There are harnesses to one side that he can imagine dinosaurs’ faces being locked into and the sight puts him a little on edge. It seems…unnatural. As unnatural as anything to do with dinosaurs can be. 

Owen draws him over to the bars of the enclosure until they’re only standing just in front of the doors and then he raises a hand to his mouth and whistles, long and loud. There’s a screech and the thud of feet pounding against the dirt as four green streaks emerge from the foliage. The first one to reach the bars stops centimetres from them, bright yellow eyes blinking and Zach would have taken an involuntary step backwards if it wasn’t for the arm that suddenly wrapped itself around his waist, holding him in place. 

He could see the other raptors flanking the first out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t bring himself to break his gaze with the big yellow orbs currently staring at him. He was kind of petrified. 

“Zach, this is Blue. Blue, this is Zach.” Owen reached out the hand not holding onto Zach’s waist and placed it on Blue’s face, running it softly down her nose. Zach took a deep breath in, waiting for the moment when Owen’s fingers became dinosaur food but it didn't happen. 

“Blue’s the beta.” He took Zach’s hand in his and pulled it through the bars, placing it on the velociraptor’s nose. Her nostrils flared gently and Zach’s heart stopped. It was all he could do not to yank his hand back to his chest as the raptor’s lip curled up to show gleaming, white teeth. Owen’s grip tightened on his waist as he pulled Zach’s hand back, Blue watching his every move. He could see why she was called Blue now that he wasn’t completely focused on her eyes, the bright stripes down her side were a dead giveaway. 

Owen moved his hand forward to the next raptor in line, who had a little more brown in her colouring than Blue did. “This is Delta, she’s the second oldest after Blue.” Delta didn’t move as Zach’s hand rested on her nose, she simply watched him silently in a way that was almost eerie. When he moved his hand away she tilted her head to the side, staring at him, even as Owen moved him toward the next raptor.

“This is Echo. She’s my little troublemaker.” The raptor in question snorted at that and Zach jumped as he felt her exhale hotly on his hand. She had the same brown and green colouring as Delta but her face was marred by rough scars that he could feel the ridges of underneath his fingertips. “When they were younger, Echo decided she wanted to be beta and challenged Blue for command of the pack. Unfortunately for her, she lost.” It’s a reminder Zach didn’t really need of exactly how dangerous these animals were. 

The last velociraptor in the line was jumping on the spot, clicking her claws almost excitedly as she moved from foot to foot. She was all green with even brighter green striping down her sides and Owen chuckled as he moved Zach’s hand to rest on her face. “This is Charlie. She’s the baby of the pack and she’s definitely the cutest.” Delta let out a screech at that almost as if she understood what Owen was saying and Charlie huffed, tilting her face up to rub it against Zach’s hand. 

“I think she likes you.” He hadn’t realised Owen’s hand had left his until the other man spoke up from where he was opening the gate behind them. Zach jumped in his place, automatically wanting to pull his hand back but not having the courage to move. He didn’t want to show weakness in front of the raptors either, because the last thing he needed was for them to think he made an easy meal, especially if Owen wasn’t standing right beside him. 

He stared into Charlie’s eyes for a long minute before quickly flicking his head back to see if Owen was still there. As fast as he’d turned, he was back facing the raptors because honestly, turning around at all while his hand was in the cage was a terrible idea - he was practically asking to lose his fingers. It had confirmed what he’d already thought though, Owen was no longer there.

“Alright Charlie,” he said softly, grimacing as she perked up at the sound of her name. “I’m gonna pull my hand back out now and you’re not going to eat it, ok?” He tried to sound as firm as possible and he slowly began to retract his hand, not daring to breathe until it was by his side again.

“Ok, good.” He let out a sigh of relief, raising an eyebrow when Charlie whined. “What? You disappointed you didn’t rip my arm off? Too bad, you had your chance.” 

He folded his arms across his chest and tried not to shift uncomfortably as he stared at the dinosaurs in front of him. He wondered whether they saw new people often, if at all, because they were all still staring at him as if they were trying to figure him out or trying to figure out how to eat him at least. 

“Alright. Well, this has been great, let’s not do it again.” He turns on his heel and exits the cage, holding a hand to his face to shield his eyes from the sun. He contemplates stealing Owen’s motorbike for a fraction of a second and smirks before deciding that’s probably more trouble than it’s worth. He finally notices Gray talking to another guy up a set of metal stairs a few meters away and heads over to see if he can steal his quad bike and escape back to the hotel. He’d like nothing more than to sleep for the rest of the week and maybe order room service. 

“Zach!” Gray waves to him as he gets closer. “You remember Barry, right?” 

And yeah, he does actually, now that he thinks about it and he smiles sheepishly. “Sure, from dinner right?” He shakes the man’s hand because they never really met the night before and nods at his friendly expression. 

“Owen took you to meet the girls.” It’s more of a statement than a question so he just shrugs noncommittally.

“Yep and then he left me to get eaten.”

Barry laughs as if he should have been expecting it and maybe he should have, from what he knows of the raptor trainer it does seem in character - but then what he knows is actually very little.

“He wouldn’t have left you with them if he thought they’d hurt you.” Gary protests and he sounds so earnest that Zach wants to hit his own head against a wall. 

“He doesn’t know that Gray, they’re animals.” He looks at his little brother seriously. “You should know that better than anyone.” He hates that he’s become the fun-destroyer now, like he’s the one that always has to say something negative about everything but he just wants Gray to understand. He doesn’t want what happened to him to happen to his little brother. 

Barry looks like he wants to say something but decides against it and motions to the steps behind him. “Come on, you can watch the drills with us.”

It’s a textbook case of Gray’s pout getting the better of him especially since Zach already feels bad about blowing him off last night, so he goes without a fuss, planning to watch just the one drill and then steal the keys for the four wheeler immediately after. 

As his boots hit the top of the catwalk he hears a rustle beneath him and looks down to see Charlie peering up at him, tail swishing behind her from side to side. He frowns a little and takes a few steps forward, pausing as she follows, bouncing after him. He steps from one side of the walkway to the other, watching as she ducks beneath it to look up at him from the ground on either side.  

Gray is laughing behind him as soon Blue joins Charlie underneath the walkway, peering up at him. “I’ve never seen them act like this unless someone has food,” his brother notes, joining him at the railing. 

“Well, maybe it’s because they think I am food.” He grumbles lightly, flinching as Gray elbows him in the side. 

“I promise you that while you’re here, you’re not gonna get eaten by a dinosaur.” Gary sticks his pinky finger out and Zach’s cold heart warms maybe just a little. He shoves his younger brother’s hand out of the way, ruffling his hair affectionately. 

“Alright girls! Eyes on me!” He hadn’t even noticed Owen appear at the other end of the catwalk until he’d spoken up. He was holding a clicker in one hand and a bucket in the other. Blue screeched, racing over to stand right below Owen and Delta and Echo followed, staring up at him attentively. Charlie seemed much more reluctant, glancing up at Zach and Gray, then back at Owen. 

“Charlie.” Owen pressed down on the clicker in his hand and motioned with his head for her to come over with the rest of her pack. She moved her feet up and down and screeched once but still refused to move. Owen turned his head to look directly at Zach and raised his eyebrows. He couldn’t help it, he let a smirk pull at the corner of his mouth and shrugged his shoulders. That’s what he gets for leaving him alone with them. 

Owen rolled his eyes, turning back to his raptors impatiently, pressing down on the clicker again, “Charlie don’t give me that shit, now!” He growled, this time reinforced by a screech from Blue that made the youngest raptor go skidding over. 

“Alright, and we’re walking.” 

He watched as Owen led them through a few basic drills followed by a hide and seek exercise. He had a way with them that’s for sure, they definitely had a relationship, but there’s no way Zach would call it control. It should be clear enough to anyone that these predators have a mind of their own - you can ask them to do something but no one can make them do anything they don’t want to. 

“It’s a complicated relationship.” Barry commented next to him and Zach felt himself nod absentmindedly. 

“Owen said that Echo challenged Blue for leadership of the pack,” he said suddenly, turning to the handler, “but he never said whether any of them had challenged him.”

He has no doubt that Owen Grady is a very special kind of person, but these are carnivorous dinosaurs they’re talking about, could he really survive a challenge for dominance? Why hadn’t Blue figured out that she could just tear his throat out and be alpha herself? Because he had no doubt in his mind that that’s what Owen was to them - the alpha. 

“What you have to understand is that they’ve been with Owen since they were born,” Barry clasps his hands together, “they’ve challenged him on many things and he has the scars to prove it.”

“But…” Zach prompts.

“But, they’ve never challenged his place as alpha. Not once.” 

And that’s something Zach just doesn’t understand. If they’ve fought amongst themselves then why not with Owen also? What makes their bond with him different to what they have with each other?

“It seems like the only challenge in leadership I’m going to have to worry about is gonna come from you.” Owen speaks up from behind him and Zach swings around, feeling a little guilty to be caught talking about the man behind his back.

“What do you mean by that?” 

Owen simply motions to the side and Zach looks over the railing to find Charlie staring up at him again. She’s like a lost puppy.

“I’m not doing anything on purpose.” He raises his hands defensively. “I don’t even like her.” 

Owen snorts, “That’s a lie, everybody likes Charlie.”

He can only stare at the other man incredulously because this is a dinosaur we’re talking about here. 

“Ok, look, it’s been a long day, I’m just gonna-“

“Come to my place for a beer.” Owen cuts in, already heading for the stairs. 

Zach furrows his brows incredulously. “What? No!” Where did Barry go? Where did Gray go? Why is there suddenly no one around to save him from Owen Grady? 

“It’s lunchtime, I have some steaks in the fridge.” 

“But-“

“Nope. Come on.”

He’s not sure what kind of expression is on his face but he’s sure its a mixture of hopelessness, indignation, righteous fury…all these things in no particular order. But he _is_ kind of hungry and this does get him away from dinosaurs for a while. Hopefully. 

“There’s no dinosaurs there right?” 

Owen looks at him strangely. “Is that a serious question?” It takes him a moment to realise that yeah, it is, and he laughs quietly. “Come on, kid.”

Zach grits his teeth and sighs. 

 

* * *

 

He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed the ocean until he was sitting in the sand by Owen’s bungalow, beer in hand staring out at the water. He’s pulled off his boots and rolled up his jeans as far as he can and its nice, the feeling of sand on his feet again. 

“You wanna go for a swim?” 

Owen’s eyes are piercing and Zach refuses to turn and face him head on.

“No.”

“Because you don’t want to? Or because you’re afraid?” 

He bristles a little at that, because what does this guy know anyway? He’s known Zach for all of two days - not even that. 

“Because I don’t want to.” He grits out, tossing back the rest of his beer. Figures the guy that lives in a bungalow would keep Corona. “What do you know about it anyway?”

Owen shifts next to him. “I know it wasn’t your fault.” 

Zach snorts, “how could you possibly know that?” He wasn’t there and almost everybody who was there was content enough to blame him. 

“I’ve seen the video. It wasn’t your fault Zach, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Owen’s hand is on his shoulder and he shrugs it off violently. 

“Yeah, well. Tell that to the rest of the world.” He’s allowed to be a little bitter. After everything was said and done and the video of the attack hit the internet, the story couldn’t be contained. SeaWorld said it was an incident caused by trainer error - in other words, it was his fault. It made him angry really, not that he ever actually wanted a career in animal training, but he was a good researcher and decent behaviouralist and his reputation in his field was now shot to hell. 

“Come swimming with me.” Owen pushes and Zach shakes his head.

“Maybe another time ok? But not…not today.”  

They sit in silence for a little while before Zach asks, “how did you know about the video? Did Aunt Claire tell you about what happened? Or Gray?” 

“I figured after last night something had happened with your animal, so I looked you up online.” He shrugs unapologetically. Great..that would have showed up some lovely articles about him, he’s sure. 

He’s saved from commenting further when his phone vibrates in his pocket. _Please tell me you’re actually having lunch_. Well then. He rolls his eyes, typing out a reply to Claire. _It’s delicious ;)._ She deserved that after this morning, in fact, he probably wasn’t going to speak to her seriously for at least another couple of days, or until he knows for sure she hasn’t got any crazy ideas in her head. 

“Claire thinks we’re screwing.” Owen chokes on his drink and Zach smirks. 

“What?” His eyes widen as if he hasn’t been flirting with Zach since the moment they met. 

“Mhmm, she seems pretty concerned about it too.” He flicks open another message from her. _ZACH. NO._

“Well she does think I’m the worst date on the island.” 

It’s an offhand comment but the cogs in Zach’s mind start turning over. “Wait…what?” The silence is awkward for a moment before Zach scrambles to his feet. “Seriously?! Oh my god.” He paces across the sand and back again before looking at Owen and squeaking, “seriously?!” Once more.

“It was one time.” Owen shrugs from his place in the sand, seemingly not too bothered. He realises his mistake as Zach’s face pales. “And nothing happened! At all!” 

Zach lets out a strangled noise and he’s sure his face is probably almost purple by now and why is Owen looking at him like he’s overreacting. How is this happening to him right now? “You came onto me. More than once!” 

“Yeah…I meant to!” The ex-SEAL is staring at him like he’s from another planet and Zach takes a deep breath to calm himself. 

“Ok. Ok. Just checking.” 

He throws himself back onto the sand and closes his eyes, throwing an arm over his face. He just wants to restart this whole day over again and when Zara comes to find him at the gym he’ll tell her he’s incredibly busy visiting the gentle giants petting zoo so Claire will have to wait. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Let’s pencil that in for tomorrow anyway. 

 

 

 

 


	5. Indominous

Two days had passed since Zach first met the velociraptor pack and he’d managed to avoid everyone he didn’t want to talk to on Isla Nublar quite successfully so far - which was, well, everyone. Pretty impressive considering the size of the place and the fact that he wasn’t a native so to speak, although, considering he was using his VIP pass Aunt Claire gave him to access everything, he was fairly sure that she at least, was just humouring him - they could track these things right? 

He’d messaged Gray on the first day and begged off coming to the raptor pen again, saying he just needed a little more time to himself to work on his physical therapy. He figured since he actually did work on his physical therapy then it was only half a lie, right? He’d been dodging him and everyone else, ever since. 

 _Can you please just come to dinner tonight with us?_ Zach rolled his eyes as he leaned against the fence of the microceratus enclosure. Claire might be humouring him, but she’d toe the line in her damn Louboutins. 

 _No. Who even is ‘we’?_ Another dinner with a bunch of people he barely knew asking him about his old job for lack of conversation topics, not to mention having to see Owen Grady after their last embarrassing encounter? Well, embarrassing for Zach anyway, yeah - no thanks. It was great that all of the people his family worked with were so nice and all, but he didn’t really need them all inserting themselves into his life, he wasn’t going to be here that long anyway.

 _Just Gray and I_. Sure it was. 

 _I’ll see how I’m feeling_. He was going to be unfortunately ill, he just knew it. He watched the microceratus dart back and forth in front of him, they were his favourite dinosaur he’d discovered in the park so far, though that may have something to do with the fact that they’re the smallest. Tiny, even, by dinosaur standards. They’re also herbivores, which endears them to him even more.

He couldn’t really explain why he didn’t want to see or talk to anyone to be honest, ever since the incident he just felt like socialising less and less - not that he was the most social person around in the first place. Logically, he supposed going to dinner wouldn’t be that bad and maybe he’d even enjoy himself once he was there, but the effort of actually going seemed like far too much to deal with at the moment, so he just couldn’t (or rather _wouldn’t)_. 

He wound his way back around to the hotel, blending in with the growing crowds. He couldn’t really imagine what it would be like at a busy time of year - Zara had told him the other day the park was only at about 15 percent capacity, which was just nuts if you asked Zach, the place already felt like SeaWorld on a weekend. It was expensive too, he’d hate to think of how much it would cost people to visit here if their Aunt wasn’t the park director. 

He passed by the underwater observatory on the way back as he wound his way around the mosasaurus’ pool, shaking his head as people queued up to gain entry. “Get face to jaws with our mosasaurus without having to swim in the lagoon”. He snorted, no thank you. No thank you to everything in this park pretty much - why was he here again? Throwing his fringe back out of his eyes he limped up the stairs to the Hilton, gripping the railing harshly. Walking was getting easier, stairs were still annoying. He wasn’t going to say hard, he could do _everything_ , some things were just more irritating than others, that was all.

He slumped back against the wall in the elevator, closing his eyes as his head hit the wall with a thump. The doors shuddered for a moment, opening again to let more guests in before closing and throwing the small space into silence. His brow furrowed as the lift remained silent and still. 

“You know, you usually have to press the button on these things if you want to go anywhere.”

Zach groaned quietly, banging his head back against the wall, a little harder this time. “What do you want?” He opened his eyes as Owen pressed the button for the top floor and the elevator finally began to ascend.

“Well isn’t that a loaded question.”

Zach rolled his eyes before closing them again, returning to his position against the wall. 

“Charlie misses you.” 

The doors slide open and he scoots out, shouldering past the raptor trainer softly. “Uh huh, using the kids as an excuse to see me, very mature.” 

He swipes his key card, stumbling into his room where he collapses onto his bed, hopefully looking exhausted and not incapable of lowering himself onto the mattress properly. Owen’s eyes follow him closely as he struggles through removing his boots and socks, then his shirt, followed shortly by his jeans before he crawls under the covers, curling up on his side. 

“What do you want?” He asks when Owen remains silent, gaze unwavering. 

The older man shrugs. “Came to see what was up with you.” 

Zach snorts. “Nothing’s up with me, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” He’s never liked people in his space, be it his apartment or a hotel room and he certainly isn’t good with people who won’t take a hint and leave him alone when he doesn’t want to be social. There’s something about Owen though that makes him feel…fuzzy. Like he’s buzzing that someone cares enough to wave away his bullshit. 

“Where’s your meds?” Owen’s already headed for the bathroom, returning in seconds with a glass of water in one hand and a pill bottle in the other which he rattles from side to side. “Here. Take these.” He’s bodily dragging Zach into a sitting position and shoving the pills into his hand. 

“You know, you’re very pushy for someone who I barely know.” He does as he’s told, but like everything else, he’ll be damned if he does it without grumbling at least a little bit. Really, who does this guy even think he is?

“I know you better than almost anyone else on this island.” Owen says seriously, holding his gaze as he reaches out a hand to ruffle Zach’s hair.

“Hey, don’t do that!” The brunette snaps, swatting at Owen’s hand. Owen laughs quietly, ignoring him as he usually does and Zach won’t admit it to anyone on pain of death, but the fingers carding through his hair actually do feel kind of relaxing. 

“So your raptors like me better than you, huh?” He murmurs quietly

Owen snorts. “Keep dreaming, kid.” He’s laying down next to Zach now, so close his scent is taunting the younger man, daring him to move closer. 

“I don’t know, Charlie seems to like me alright.” He smirks tiredly, grimacing as Owen suddenly flicks him in the temple with a finger. “Ow!” He throws himself across the sheets, punching the raptor trainer in the arm harshly. 

“Dick.” He’s fully aware that he started it, but he reserves the right to pout anyway. He can see Owen’s eyes rolling in his head without even having to look and that, coupled with the position he’s currently in, probably should have been a sign that he’s already in way too deep and now would be a good time to abort and get the hell off of Isla Nublar before he ends up getting hurt worse than what can be fixed with 238 stitches. 

“So…” Owen flicks him again, this time in the arm and not the face. “What’s going on with you?” 

Zach frowned. “What? I don’t want to hang around carnivorous dinosaurs every day and I’m the weird one?” He brushes the other man off. 

“I’d believe you if you were just avoiding the raptors and not also everyone else that works on the island.” 

“I’m not avoiding everyone,” Zach really hoped he sounded more believable out loud than he did in his head, but when he looked up at Owen’s face all those hopes were dashed. 

“Really? Then I guess you won’t mind coming to dinner with us tonight.” Ha. He knew Claire was lying about dinner. The next time he saw her she was going to get it. 

“Owen, seriously, I’m not avoiding everyone, but I’m too tired to go out to dinner tonight.” He tilted his head back to look up at the older man, jutting out his lower lip. He hadn’t tried this on anyone in years but he’d damn well seen Gray do it enough to get the idea. 

“Ok,” Owen sighed, “you should get some rest.” Zach closed his eyes in relief. Huh, so the pout does work. “But since you’re not avoiding everyone this means you can come and see the girls tomorrow.” 

Zach’s eyes snapped open. “Wait, what?!” 

Owen smirked. “You didn’t really think I was falling for that did you?” 

Well yeah, actually he did but he probably should have known better. Damn it. 

“Dinner tonight or the raptors tomorrow, your choice.” Owen spoke up again and Zach glared at him.

“You do realise that you can’t actually make me do anything?” Why was he even entertaining the idea at all? He was doing neither of those things. 

“Zach, are you asking me to persuade you?”  

His could feel his cheeks flush what was probably a brilliant shade of red as he stopped breathing properly. His heart rate accelerated as Owen tugged him sideways until he was sprawled on top of the older man, staring down at him wide eyed. He was acutely aware of the fact that he had barely anything on while Owen was still fully clothed.

“Um…”

His brain short-circuited and he caught his lower lip between his teeth harshly. One of Owen’s palms came up to cup his neck just below his jaw and Zach closed his eyes tightly. All his nerve endings were alight, like he could feel everything a thousand times as much as usual and that buzzing in his chest had graduated into a full on hum. 

“Owen…” he breathed out quietly, sinking into the raptor trainer’s hold. 

“I got you,” Owen murmured before pulling him down to seal their lips together. _That’s exactly what I’m afraid of_ , Zach thought, heart pounding against his ribcage. It was soft and sweet and it made Zach so dazed that he probably would have agreed to jump _in_ the raptor pen if Owen asked it of him, so yeah, mission accomplished navy man, consider him persuaded.

Owen continued to kiss down his neck as Zach’s grip tightened on his arms, pulling himself up to roll his hips against the other mans. “ _Owen_ ,” Zach groaned out, nudging with one knee until he could roll them over so his back was to the mattress, Owen hovering above him, careful not to put any weight on the brunette’s injured legs. 

He surged back up to meet Owen’s lips again only to startle as a high pitched ringing sounded through the room. No, no, no. “Ignore it,” Zach groaned, tugging on Owen’s arm as his hand went for his pocket. 

“I can’t, it could be important.” 

More important than this? Zach knew he should have thrown him out when he had the chance. 

“How sick?” Owen is speaking into the phone with a worried look on his face and at this distance Zach can just recognise Barry’s accent through the speaker but can’t decipher what he’s actually saying. “Alright, I’ll be right there.” He hung up his phone before flying into action throwing on the shoes he’d tossed off at the end of the bed. 

“Delta’s sick, I have to go.” He tied the laces of his boots hurriedly. “Someone has to administer the medicine and she won’t let anyone else do it.” 

Zach frowns. “What do you mean by sick?” She’s a dinosaur - does that mean her immune system is better or worse than regular animals?

“Delta has a little more avian DNA than the others which makes her more susceptible to illnesses. They get sick just like any other animal, they can die from sicknesses just like any other animal.” His tone is serious but rushed and it makes Zach wonder if Owen’s lost raptors before. In his mind, the current pack had always been his only pack, but maybe that’s not the case - maybe he’s had raptors before these ones and something had happened to them. 

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” He threw his phone back in his pocket and strode quickly towards the door before apparently changing his mind and striding back towards Zach, pulling him forwards roughly to seal their mouths together. “Rain check?” 

And then he was gone. 

And Zach was left wondering rain check for what? What exactly was that going to turn into? Owen Grady’s latest conquest on the island fulfilled? His gut churned at that. Maybe that call was a godsend, the absolute last thing he wanted was to be another notch in the belt of a guy who dated his Aunt once, right? It was as terrible as it read on paper really and that was pretty terrible. 

As much as he wanted Owen Grady in that moment, it was the worst kind of bad idea and he would remind himself of that from here on out. 

“Come on Zach, get a grip.” He muttered to his empty room, throwing himself back on the bed and snuggling into the covers, absolutely not breathing in Owen’s scent on the pillows. 

 

* * *

 

The ‘All-Access Pass’ Claire got him really was all-access, it let him in everywhere, even places he really wasn’t meant to be which is how at two o’clock in the morning he found himself staring at the inky black water of the Hilton’s indoor pool, watching the water ripple across its surface as he flicked at it with his toe. 

The pool wasn’t really used that much, even during daylight hours when it was actually open which was probably due to; one: the fact that most people were paying a hell of a lot of money to see the dinosaurs and not swim in some pool which they could do anywhere and, two: there was an outdoor water park on the property as well (because _of course_ there was) so why would anyone come to the indoor lap pool over that? The few times he’d poked his head in he’d merely seen a few lap swimmers of a morning. He’d only poked his head in because it was on the way to the gym of course and not for any other reason whatsoever - he had no interest in swimming himself thank you very much…except…here he was. 

“Just do it.” He muttered to himself, splashing his foot against the water angrily, wincing as the sound reverberated through the room. He didn’t suppose anyone would be on the floor to hear it but while the pool _was_ meant to be closed, the gym was 24/7 so he probably shouldn’t scream to the rooftops that he was in here. 

He pulled his tee shirt over his head suddenly and then tugged off the track pants he’d pulled on to wander down in, leaving him in just his shorts. Slowly and quietly he slipped into the pool, gripping the railing tightly as he descended the steps. The pool was heated so he knew logically that the water wasn’t cold, but it still felt icy as it rose up around him until it reached his chest. 

Breathing harshly, he closed his eyes slowly and then sunk below the surface. There was nothing for him to be afraid of here. He was alone in the water - it was still and silent. He held his breath for only moments before a flash of teeth in his mind’s eye sent him rocketing back to the surface and scrambling back up the steps until he was perched atop the first one, water dripping from his face as he coughed. 

He shook slightly as he gripped the pavement behind him, water swishing around his ankles, still submerged. 

“Nice night for a swim?” He jumped at the voice coming from behind him and spun only quick enough to catch a towel in the face. He scrambled ungracefully out of the pool, drying off his head as he tried to compose himself enough to answer the man in front of him.

“Um…yeah, something like that.” 

Lowery tilted his head to the side for a moment, studying him quietly and Zach knew that by now the rest of his Aunt Claire’s staff had done their own research into him and Lowery at least, knew why he wasn’t having fun in the pool. At least he had the decency not to stare at his scars though - that was nice of him Zach supposed. 

“Anyway,” Lowery waved a hand, the one that wasn’t holding a laptop open in it, “I saw you on the security cameras and thought I’d come and see if you wanted company.” 

Zach frowned. “That’s a little creepy man,” he continued to towel off, “do you always sit and watch the security cameras at two in the morning?”

Lowery snorted, adjusting his glasses. “Not at all, however, I happened to still be working on something and an alert went off when your pass accessed a closed area.” 

“Oh.” Zach threw his shirt back on and joined Lowery where he had moved to sit against the wall of the room with his laptop. “So it sends an alert to the control room every time something like that happens?”

Lowery shook his head. “It sends an alert to my laptop every time _you or Gray_ do something like that.” And Zach understands that this is something Claire has asked her resident tech geek to do for her. 

“Figures.” He shrugs his shoulders. “So what were you still doing up anyway?” He peers over Lowery’s shoulder curiously, on his laptop screen are sketches of what seems to be a dinosaur but it isn’t any kind of dinosaur Zach’s ever seen before. 

“I was doing a little research into the new exhibit.” Lowery says absentmindedly and his fingers are flying so fast across his keyboard Zach can’t keep up with what he’s typing. He wrote a lot of essays in college but Lowery is something else with a computer in his hands. 

“You needed to do that at two in the morning?” He’s a little skeptical. He likes Lowery actually. At first he seemed to be a never-ending ball of questions but apparently now that (Zach assumes) he’s figured out his situation for lack of a better term, he’s actually quite sensitive in a way, which is strange. 

“Let’s just say I’m not exactly doing the research…legally.” Zach’s eyes widen considerably. 

“Wait, what?” 

“Well,” Lowery shrugs, “it’s all pretty hush hush, I’m betting even your Aunt doesn’t know much about it and she’s the one selling it.” He says sourly. “Something about it just doesn’t seem right.” He mutters. 

“So you’re what? Hacking InGen?” Zach is becoming slightly more alarmed by the second. “Won’t they know? Can’t you get in trouble for this? They’re not exactly the nicest guys around!” 

“Oh, please.” Lowery snorted. “If they didn’t want anyone knowing then they should have kept all their research on paper.  It’s not my problem they’re terrible at data encryption.” 

“Oh my god.” Zach puts his head in his hands. “Why did you even come down here? Are you trying to make me an accomplice? Is that it?” 

Lowery throws his hands up. “Hey! I brought you a towel!” At Zach’s glare he continues, “you’re free to leave at any time, I just thought you’d be curious about the new dinosaur they were cooking up in there, especially since they’re going to ask you to profile it.” 

That certainly got Zach’s attention. “What did you just say?” 

“Yeah, I may have overheard it earlier…” Lowery said distractedly, pulling up more pictures. 

“Why didn’t you just lead with that?!” Zach growled, pulling the laptop out of Lowery’s hands. 

“Hey!” The other man yelled, swatting at Zach’s arms unsuccessfully. “You have to admit it was more fun this way.” 

“For you, maybe.” Zach grumbled, eyes flicking across the file Lowery currently had up labelled ‘Indominous Rex’. If these sketches were anything to go by, this new dinosaur was a T-Rex. “It’s just another T-Rex.” He rolled his eyes, passing the laptop back to the other man and pulling himself up from the ground. 

“Yeah, well see that’s what I thought at first too, but there has to be more to it.” Lowery said, tone suddenly a lot more serious than Zach had gotten used to in the last two days. 

“What do you mean?” Zach frowned as Lowery turned the laptop around to face him again. 

“Well if she’s just a T-Rex, then what’s that strand of velociraptor DNA doing in there?” 

“What?” Zach asked quietly, resisting the urge to rip the laptop from Lowery’s hands again. 

“This is not good,” Lowery breathed out, “this is very, very not good.” 

Zach’s heart starts to beat a little faster. “What’s not good? What is it?” He hisses, glancing around as if someone from InGen is going to come storming in any minute to take them away and arrest them - or worse. Jesus, he’s imagining all sorts of horrible things now. 

“This is like, some kind of horrific dinosaur cocktail or something.” Lowery has stopped typing altogether now and is just staring at the screen in some type of suspended disbelief. “I see tyrannosaurus, velociraptor, carnotaurus, giganotosaurus, majungasauruhs, rugops, cuttlefish, tree frog, viper snake…” he trails off disbelievingly. Zach doesn’t know a lot about dinosaur genetics himself but he’s pretty sure that there’s not meant to be that many species combined in the one animal here - that sounds like a pretty bad idea to him. 

“You can’t just put all those species in the one animal right?” He wants to confirm, just to make sure. He is a little out of his league here after all. 

“You’re not meant to combine different species of dinosaurs at all - they’ve just gone and _made_ a new dinosaur.” Lowery’s voice is distant, like he can’t believe what’s actually coming out of his mouth and yeah, Zach knew he was on the right track here. 

“But all those species of modern animals too, that’s not always good, right?” He thinks about Delta, how she’s sick because she has more avian DNA than the others, if she didn’t, maybe she’d be healthier. 

“Oh my god.” Lowery sounds like he’s going to be sick and he begins to type faster now. Leaning over his shoulder Zach can see lines and lines of data being erased, disappearing from his screen as if they were never there in the first place. 

“What?” Zach asks quietly, afraid to even hear the answer. 

“She ate her sibling! She had a sibling and she _ate it_!” Lowery hisses out hysterically, fingertips flying across the keyboard at a rapid-fire pace. Zach thinks of Charlie, Delta, Echo and Blue, he thinks of everything Owen, Barry and Gray have told him about the Velociraptors and can’t imagine them killing each other. Even when Echo had challenged Blue, Blue hadn’t killed her - let alone _eaten_ her. He feels sick. Really, really, sick. 

“This is bad.” He says quietly. “Do you think Claire knows?” He’d like to say he knows his aunt well enough to say that she wouldn’t let something like this happen if she knew…but he’s not sure. Not sure enough to stake Gray’s life on it and that’s exactly what he’d be doing and he knows it. If this thing had no qualms about eating it’s sibling, it would certainly have no qualms about eating humans if it got out. 

“I don’t know,” Lowery muttered in answer to his earlier question, “I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure.” 

“You said they wanted me to profile it, what did you mean by that?” Zach asked as he stood up and began to pace back and forth.

“They want you, along with Owen to go and profile the new dinosaur and look at its enclosure, make sure it’s up to scratch.” Lowery finally closed his laptop. “I’ve covered our tracks, they won’t ever know we were in there.”

Zach raised an eyebrow, “they’d better not.” He shook his head. “Owen going I’d understand, but why me?”

Lowery chuckled. “You can’t seriously be that naive?” 

Zach only groaned, covering his face with his hands. “They’re courting me.” 

“They want you to work here.” Lowery nodded. “They’re not going to stop until you agree and what better way than by showing you their newest and most impressive attraction up close?”

Zach ran a hand through his hair. “This is going to end so, so, badly.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little late as I just got back from Hawaii, but better late than never. 
> 
> Come chat with me on Tumblr @ skyfallscotland :)


	6. Plans

“So,” Claire doesn’t even bother hedging and just goes straight for the jugular, “you’ve been avoiding me like the plague and now you suddenly have to have lunch with me?” She’s tossing her salad around in it’s take away bowl as she stares at him.

Zach shrugs, “I can’t just want to have lunch with you?” 

“It couldn’t have just been in a restaurant and not on some obscure beach?” Claire fires back.

He decides to just ignore her, digging a small hole in the sand at the edge of their impromptu picnic to sit his drink in so it won’t topple over. He only just manages to get his own takeaway container open and a forkful in his mouth before Claire tries again. 

“Is this about Owen?”

He chokes on his salad. “How do you know about that?” He's coughing into his hand as she gives him the strangest look. 

“Everybody knows about that.”

“What do you mean everybody knows about that?!” His eyes are wide and Claire puts down her salad.

“I’m starting to think we’re not talking about the same thing.” She narrows her eyes and Zach thinks _oh_ and realises she actually has no idea. “What happened between you and Owen?” She asks sharply.

Zach just rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, it won’t happen again.” He goes back to eating his salad, flinching as Claire flicks him in the arm. “Seriously Aunt Claire, it was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing, it’s bothering you.” She says it calmly but her eyes are looking kind of angry. “And you’re going out of your way to avoid him.”

Zach sighs. “Something might have happened. But…”

“But…” Claire prompts.

He smirks warily, “you know his reputation better than I do.” He shrugs. “Something in my gut is telling me this is a bad idea.”

“He’s a good guy, Zach.” She says softly, shrugging apologetically. 

“He’s growing on me. Like a fungus.” He laughs quietly, shaking his head. “I know he’s a good guy, but that doesn’t mean we want the same things.” He lets his aunt put her arm around his shoulders and pull him into her side, holding him close.

“I’m sorry.” She says quietly and he pulls away to look up at her. 

“Why?” He frowns, wrapping his arms around his knees.

“This was meant to be better for you. I made you come here thinking it would make things easier for you but it hasn’t, all I’ve done is make things worse.” She bites her lip to stop it from quivering and Zach’s stomach sinks.

“It’s not your fault.” He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t be any better off somewhere else, it’s just the way it is. It’s hard. It was going to be hard anywhere.” He feels like his whole life has caved in on him 85 percent of the time, that isn’t going to change no matter where he is. 

“I promise not to ask you to work with the mosasaurus anymore.” She says quietly and he’s not sure if she’s reassuring him or herself. 

“Thanks,” he says dryly, “but I’m a little more worried about the Indominous Rex.” 

Her head shoots up and she looks at him with narrowed eyes. “What do you know about that?” 

“Enough to know it’s a really, _really_ bad idea.”

“Why? Because it’s bigger than the other dinosaurs?” She snorted.

Zach stared. “You don’t know, do you?” 

“Know what?”

“What’s in it!” He stood up, pacing down the beach. “You’re selling it and you have no idea how unstable this thing really is.” 

“What do you mean by ‘what’s in it’? It’s t-rex and some other animals, it’s the same way they make all the other dinosaurs.” 

“No,” Zach shakes his head, “no it’s not. It’s t-rex and velociraptor and carnotaurus and giganotosaurus and majungasaurus and a bunch of other deadly animals!” He hissed, throwing his hands up “and it _ate it’s sister_!”

Claire’s face is pale. “How do you know this? Zach, how did you get this information?” 

“Lowery. Lowery hacked into their servers the other night and we found the original files on the Indominous.” He ran a hand through his hair. 

“If InGen find out you know…” She trailed off. 

“I know.” He said seriously, “That’s what I told him. He said he wiped everything, all the traces that he was there.” 

“What do we do?” Claire asked quietly. “They’re going to ask you to assess the paddock, I’m sure Lowery told you that…you could tell them that it’s unsafe?”

Zach shook his head. “That only delays the inevitable. The problem is what they’ve created…I don’t know if there even is a way to permanently and safely contain something like this. Obviously I’d have to see it to know but…” The look on Claire’s face told him everything he needed to know. “It’s not good is it?” 

“It’s…big Zach. Really big.” 

He closed his eyes. “We need to tell Owen.” Before Claire could even open her mouth to object Zach shook his head, “there’s no one else who knows enough about dinosaurs and dinosaur behaviour that we can trust with this.” 

“What about Gray?” Claire asked.

“No.” Zach’s eyes went hard. “We don’t tell Gray. Not until it becomes absolutely necessary.” The last thing he needed was Gray curious enough to be anywhere near this thing. 

“Ok.” Claire nodded. “So we tell Owen.” 

He sits back down, head falling into his hands and finally asks the question that’s been bugging him since last night. “Why me?” Claire gives him a questioning look and he elaborates. “Why do they really want me to look at this dinosaur? They have Owen.” He knows Lowery said it was because Masrani wanted him to work for them, but that explanation doesn’t it right with him.

“Because you’re my nephew.” Claire worries her lip between her teeth. “Because while they figure you’re not the most experienced behaviouralist, you know enough and your relationship to me also guarantees you’ll keep this quiet…at least that’s what they think.”

He closes his eyes. “Well, we’d better not give them any reason to believe otherwise.” 

And so, as much as their unplanned trip to the beach had been to avoid being accosted by Owen Grady and taken to the raptor paddock, Zach later found himself pulling up to the place of his own accord. Funny how life worked out. 

He climbed off the ATV he’d borrowed and headed towards the pen, noticing Owen deep in concentration on the catwalk above. Barry was off to one side with another guy he didn’t recognise and from the sounds of it, they were running drills with the girls which suddenly gave Zach a brilliant idea. He snickered a little to himself as he glanced back up at the catwalk. No one had seen him yet so he quietly strode around the walls of the enclosure and ducked through the door at the bottom where Owen had taken him the first time he’d met the raptors. 

He walked right up to the front of the bars, hands in his pockets, leaves shuffling beneath his feet. Owen had three of the raptors doing drills about 30 feet in front of him and as he approached they faltered, stopping to listen and then sniff the air. Charlie reacted first, spinning around and dashing for the bars at breakneck speed, skidding to a stop in front of him. She jumped from foot to foot excitedly chittering away as she nosed at him through the cage. 

Echo was next, her tail just clipping Charlie as she scrambled up next to her, sniffing away at Zach as if he was something tasty. He couldn’t really decide if it was cute or still just creepy. Blue had let out a little yelp and was looking rapidly between her sisters and her alpha as if she wasn’t sure what had just happened and if she should be dragging them back by their tails. 

Zach brushed his fringe out of his face and met Owen’s eyes, smirking.  

The older man gave him an unimpressed look before snorting. “Fine Blue, go on. I’ll be down in a minute.” He rolled his eyes, throwing the rat in his hand down to his beta who leaped up to catch it, snatching it out of the air and swallowing it whole before racing over to catch up to her sisters. 

“Hey Blue,” He murmured, finally taking his hand out of his pocket and raising it up slowly, running it down her nose. Charlie chittered unhappily, attempting to nudge Blue out of the way until Zach paid her some attention. “Alright, alright, jeez.” He ran a hand up and down the side of her head. Echo seemed content just to sniff at him and attempt to rub her nose against him through the bars. 

“Where’s Delta huh? She still sick?” And he’s talking to dinosaurs man, they can’t answer, so why is he asking them questions? They do seem to recognise their sister’s name though because Charlie huffs, pushing up against his hand. He’s almost starting to feel like he can trust these animals not to bite him, which is clearly indicative of his fading sanity. 

Just as he thinks that, Blue’s teeth pull at his sleeve, dragging him sideways toward her and his heart begins to pound. “Hey,” he glares at her a little, “don’t put holes in my clothes.” She hasn’t actually, only tugged at him gently but he wants her to know he’s not comfortable with her teeth on him.

He thinks the look she’s giving him now is the equivalent to a petulant glare.

“So you decided to show up after all?” Owen doesn’t sound angry, but it’s not like he’s about to turn around to find out and take his eyes off a pack of velociraptors. 

“Yeah, well.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I had things to do.”

Owen snorts and Zach takes a few steps back from the raptor’s enclosure to turn and face him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Owen mutters, shaking his head. 

“Seriously, what?” Zach glares at him for a minute and Owen shrugs. 

“You can’t stop living your life because something bad happened to you.”

Zach thinks he’s probably closer than he’s ever been to punching Owen in the face. He can tell that the words weren’t meant to hurt him but how many times has someone said those exact same words to him? Words that they can’t fully comprehend the meaning of because they can’t possibly understand what it’s like. But then he thinks that maybe, even though his immediate response is righteous anger, he’s being a little too harsh on Owen because if there’s anyone that could probably understand on this island, it’s him. 

He must still look like he’s going to start spitting fire because the raptor trainer raises his hands in surrender and steps backward. “I’m just saying, I get it but you’re letting it take you over.” 

“I’m twenty three.” He says like it gives him a free pass to be any way he wants and it kind of does - not many twenty three year olds have been through what he has.

“Come diving with me tomorrow.” Owen suggests and Zach’s brain can’t keep up with this guy anymore. Where is this coming from? 

“No.” He says shortly, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Zach.” 

“No.” He stares the older man down. “I’m not fit enough to go diving yet.” 

“You mean you’re not brave enough.” Owen corrects. 

“No, I mean I can’t even wear my damn fins, so back off!” His voice is raised now and he hears Blue hiss from behind him. He turns to see Charlie and Echo have gone still but Blue is snapping her jaws at him. He guesses she doesn’t like people yelling at her alpha, no matter how nice she’s been to them before. 

“Snorkelling then.” Owen’s jaw is clenched and Zach knows he won’t back down. 

“I don’t know if I _can_.” His voice is strained and he just wants to be out of this situation. He wants Owen to stop pushing. That just wouldn’t be Owen Grady though, would it? The guy knows how to press until it hurts.

“Then I guess we’ll find out together.” Owen says and Zach feels his heart clamber into his throat. 

“Ok.” He says hoarsely, breathing out in exhaustion. “Ok.” 

He’s rubbing his eyes tiredly when the raptor trainer envelops him in a hug and he knows this is his way of saying ‘sorry I’m a dick and I pushed you but it’s for your own good’ or something to that effect. At least that’s what he wanted to think. 

“Owen,” he says quietly, “there’s something else.” He pulls away, running his hand through his hair. “What do you know about the new attraction they’ve been developing for the park?” 

He watched the older man frown. “Not much, just that it’s a big paddock they’re building up north…I figured it was for another T-Rex.” 

“Well you’re not wrong, but you’re also missing some pieces.” 

“Pieces of what?” Owen questioned, stepping closer again as Zach lowered his voice. 

“The dinosaur.” He deadpanned. At Owen’s impatient look he continued, “namely velociraptor, carnotaurus, giganotosaurus and majungasaurus among other things.” 

Owen laughed. “What are you talking about? They can’t combine the DNA of that many dinosaurs.” At Zach’s serious look he frowned a little. “Can they?” 

“It’s InGen we’re talking about here.” He reminded, throwing his hands up in the air.

“That’s a terrible idea! They can’t just cook up some mutant dinosaur in their labs and expect it to behave like a normal one.” 

Zach rolled his eyes. “Too late. They already have.” 

“What?!” Owen hissed quietly, glancing back outside to see if anyone was around to hear them talking.

“Yeah and that’s not even the best part.” Zach grabbed his shirt to pull him back over. 

“Oh great, what is?”

“There were two of them and guess what happened to the sibling.” Without waiting for Owen to guess he finished, “she ate it.” 

“Jesus Christ.” Owen breathes in deeply. “This is so not good.” 

“It’s so far from not good that it isn’t funny anymore. The question is, what the hell are we going to do about it?” He started to pace back and forth, “even if we wanted to get rid of it, we don’t even know that it’s possible to kill it.”

“Is it trainable?” The older man wondered out loud. 

“No.” Zach said shortly. “It’s been locked away since it ate it’s sibling, it’s had no socialisation. There’s no way we can train it. I mean, you’ve had the raptor squad since they hatched and it’s not like you’d go in the cage with them, right?”

Owen’s face adopts a guilty look and Zach’s startled for a minute before he lets out a quiet “oh.” Because of course Owen goes into the cage with them. It’s probably against every rule the damn theme parks ever had but he considers these animals family. “Right.” 

“So if we can’t kill it and we can’t train it, how do we keep the park safe from it?” 

“I guess it’s our job to figure that out,” Zach shrugs, kicking at the dirt. “It’s not like we can just pick it up and put it…”

“Somewhere else.” Owen finishes slowly, eyes lighting up. “Isla Sorna.” 

Zach blinked. “How would we get it there?” 

“I never said I had a whole plan worked out.” Owen frowned at him. 

“Right, well regardless it’s not like we can just swoop in and take a 50 foot dinosaur.” Zach gestured with his hands. “InGen have poured millions into this thing, it’s not like they’re just going to let it go because we said so.” They may be going to ask for his opinion but Zach knows there’s really only one answer they want to hear and therefore only one thing they’ll listen to. 

“I’m sure InGen have been keeping a very close eye on this.” Owen muttered darkly, ignoring Zach’s questioning look. 

“Let me sleep on it tonight and we’ll see what ideas we can come up with tomorrow.” Fair enough. It’s not like he had any idea when they were going to ask him to look at the hybrid they had created so for all Zach knew, they could have plenty of time to come up with a solution before the attraction was opened to the public and put thousands of lives at risk. 

“Ok.” He sighed, turning back to face the raptors. “How’s Delta anyway?” 

Owen came up beside him to run a hand down Blue’s snout and Zach was thankful that she seemed to have calmed down. He really didn’t want to be on her bad side, just in case. 

“She’s ok,” he shrugged, “she’s sleeping out the back but she should be up and running around again in a couple of days.” He tried to seem casual but for once Zach was the one who saw right through Owen. 

“Hey, I’m sure she’s fine.” He said quietly. Owen didn’t reply, merely took his hand and guided it to Blue’s nose. She snorted a little but seemed to understand what her alpha was saying - kiss and make up please. Charlie chittered, seemingly happy they weren’t yelling anymore and Echo had long since dismissed them as anything interesting, curling up by the enclosure wall on the ground.

“Do you want to see her before you go?” 

He thought for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah, let her sleep.” Knowing Owen, he’d have him back here soon enough anyway. The older man stepped back from the enclosure, turning to the side to face him. 

“So…I have some steaks in the fridge.” 

He says it like he doesn’t always have steaks in the fridge but Zach thinks the grill is probably Owen’s best friend when it comes to culinary efforts. It’s a little endearing though, so maybe that’s why he can’t seem to do as he’d resolved to and stay away. He’s not feeling regret just yet though, so he climbs back onto his borrowed ATV and repeats to himself all the reasons this is a bad idea, wondering why none of them seem to discourage him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd just like to note here that I'm not an expert on orcas, animal trainers or anything like that. Everything here comes from research through documentaries and the internet. Later scenes depicting injury recovery are based on personal experience, though clearly my experience wasn't a killer whale attack. 
> 
> Also, I understand that the views put forth in Blackfish can be viewed as prejudiced like any other piece of media work and that that might not be everyone's cup of tea, but considering JW touches strongly on the negative implications of keeping certain animals (dinosaurs, whatever) in captivity and trying to train them, I think it fits perfectly.


End file.
